Sunday, July 30, 2017

Xi
Jinping delivers a speech during a military parade to commemorate the
90th anniversary of the founding of China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Photograph: AP

Soldiers
of China’s People’s Liberation Army at the military parade to
commemorate the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the army at
Zhurihe military training base in Inner Mongolia, China. Photograph:
China Daily/Reuters

Chinese president, Xi Jinping,
has presided over a spectacular display of military and political
might, ordering members of his 2.3 million-strong armed forces to
“unswervingly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist party of
China”.

Xi donned camouflage fatigues for the hour-long Sunday morning parade,
which marked the 90th anniversary of the creation of China’s People’s
Liberation Army, on 1 August 1927.

The procession took place at a sand-swept, 1,000 sq kilometre camp that
state media described as China’s answer to the United States’ Fort Irwin
national training centre in the Mojave desert.

Foreign journalists were not invited to witness proceedings at the
Zhurihe military training base, 400km north-west of Beijing in Inner
Mongolia.

But China’s party-run media said about 12,000 troops, more than 100
types of aircraft and 600 pieces of military hardware were put on
display at the sprawling desert camp.

The parade concluded with China showing off a new generation of intercontinental missile – the Dongfeng-31AG – which, with a range of about 11,000km, are capable of striking most parts of the US.

As their commander-in-chief rode past on top of an open-backed jeep,
thousands of rifle-toting troops bellowed: “Serve the people! Follow the
party! Fight to win!”

On the surface, Sunday’s parade was a tub-thumping display of China’s
increasingly sophisticated military prowess. “A strong army is the
backbone of a strong country,” boasted one commentator narrating a live
television broadcast of the event.

But with a key Communist party summit marking the end of Xi’s first term
in power on the horizon it was also an intensely political showcase of
his apparently unassailable position at the top of China’s one-party
system.

“All comrades, commanders and soldiers of the PLA: You must unswervingly
follow the absolute leadership of the Communist party of China,
listen to the directions set by the party and follow its command.
Wherever the party points, you shall march,” Xi declared, in a brief but
emphatic address that followed the parade.

Willy Lam, a politics expert from the Chinese University of Hong Kong,
said the demonstration of strength was aimed partly at international
rivals including India, with which China is currently engaged in an acrimonious border dispute, and the United States.

Above all, though, it was about bolstering Xi’s image as China’s top
dog. “In Chinese tradition, power grows out of the barrel of the gun:
whoever has control over the military and the police will be the supreme
leader,” Lam said.

“So this is a show of force by Xi Jinping … aimed at warning his
political enemies and also the other factions in the party that he is
firmly in control. He is the big boss and he will have a free hand in
making personnel arrangements at the 19th party congress.”

Television commentators and military officials reinforced the sense that
the parade was as much about politics as it was military affairs. “The
soldiers are in the right place, at the right time and they are ready to
do whatever the central military commission – led by president Xi
Jinping – asks them to do,” senior colonel Zhou Bo, from China’s
Ministry of National Defence told state broadcaster CGTN.

Ren Guoqiang, a defence ministry spokesman, told reporters the
rally “fully demonstrates that soldiers firmly support, and are loyal
and respectful of the Chinese Communist party’s central committee, with
comrade Xi as its core”.

Ren claimed China’s military had been transformed in the almost five
years since Xi took power, in November 2012, “like a phoenix rising from
the ashes”.

China will host its 19th Communist party congress this autumn, a
twice-a-decade conclave at which some of the most senior positions in
Chinese politics will be distributed.

As Xi prepares for the event, which marks the midpoint of his
anticipated 10-years in office, some believe he is seeking to promote
himself as the third great leader of post-revolution China, after its
founder, Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s
breathtaking economic boom. Posters being sold in some Chinese shops
feature a politically-charged hologram that morphs from Mao’s portrait
to that of Deng and, finally, Xi.

Lam said he suspected Xi’s ambitions went even further: “He wants to
position himself as the Mao Zedong of the 21st century … He wants to be
the Communist party’s second biggest star – its second most important
leader – even going beyond Deng Xiaoping.”Additional reporting by Wang Zhen